Tag: write-a-thon

With 19 hours to spare, I finished the last of my six short stories for the Clarion Write-a-thon. Woof, what a slog.

I had eight donors total. Thank you, all you lovely people! I’ll be drawing a name out of a hat (or, more likely, using an RNG) to pick who will be the lucky winner of naming a character in one of my steampunk stories. Expect that in a day or two. I just don’t even have the brainpower necessary to write names on bits of paper right now, I swear.

If you’d like to read an excerpt from this last story, you can check the blog for my write-a-thon team.

This has definitely been a learning experience for me.

Total, I wrote around 35,000 words over six weeks. Last year, I wrote 99,000 words over those same six weeks. And let me tell you, for all that’s over twice as much, those 99K words were a hell of a lot easier.

I have a rough time with short stories. I did a lot of staring at blank pages and trying to figure out what the hell I was doing. It’s way harder than just having a big plot and writing until it’s done. Of course, one of the mistakes I made this time around is that I didn’t have six stories planned out. I didn’t even have base ideas for them. Of the stories, two were planned in advance. Generating the other four ideas quickly and under pressure was a lot rougher than I expected it to be.

My brain is toast. I’m definitely short-storied out for a while, at least for new writing. Two of the stories I think I can submit for open calls that are due on August 31, so I’ll be doing some editing between now and then. The rest can percolate a while longer.

I still have plenty of work that needs doing. I owe my patient editor the first round from Murder on the Titania. I want to get this damn novel draft finished some time soon. I need to start outlining the next Captain Ramos story, since the first draft of that will be due by the end of the year and once I get back to school my writing time is going to be very limited.

I also came up with an idea that I’ve fallen in love with, just randomly as I was leaving work today. I’m letting it percolate, and we’ll see if I’m still in love with it when I can start working on something new that’s long. Because this feels big. But the working title for this project is The Bridge Over the Graveyard of Whales. I know, I know, my title fail. Right now my excuse is that my brain is just juiced. I’ll come up with a different excuse tomorrow.

Well, it sounded funny at one in the morning. What could possibly go wrong?

But seriously, I would love your support. I’m now 1/3 of the way through my self-imposed Clarion write-a-thon torture and chugging right along. I’ve finally set myself a donor goal, and it’s not for some amount of money – I just want ten (or more) supporters. I don’t care if the pledge is a nickel a story. I want – nay, NEED – to be well supported! Cross my heart!

Like a… well, you get it.

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE! (she says in a sad parody of deep announcer voice guy.)

Ever wanted to take part in a steampunk adventure which may or may not include zombies? I mean, who doesn’t? And who wouldn’t want to do that while simultaneously supporting an amazing scifi/fantasy writing workshop?

I’ll be writing at least four more stories about Captain Ramos and her pirate crew in 2013. If you donate to the write-a-thon cause, no matter the amount, I’ll throw your name in my awesome kangaroo leather hat. At the end of the write-a-thon, I’ll draw a name from the hat, and if you’re the winner, you’ll get naming rights (within reason[1]) to a character in one of these steampunk pirate adventures. Want to be a pirate? A drooling corpse? One of the lawmen hot on the trail of the notorious Captain Ramos? We’ll get it figured out.

Sound awesome? Want your name in the hat? (Of course you do.) Head over to my write-a-thon page and pledge your support!

Also, if you’re curious about my progress thus far, here are my two reports from the team blog:
Report one: Eyes Burning With Smoke
Report two: Significant Figures

1 – No, I am not going to name one of the characters IP Freely, or Mike Rotch, or name a zombie after your least favorite politician no matter how much I agree with you about them being a giant turd bag. Of course, I know everyone who reads this is way too mature for those kinds of shenanigans, but I figured I ought to throw that out there just in case someone has had one too many espresso shots today.

The Clarion Write-a-Thon is now accepting writer sign-ups! So as you’ve no doubt already guessed, I’ve signed up.

Last year I wrote the rough draft for Fire in the Belly and even met that goal a bit early. However, I know I can churn out large walls of text on command, so long as I have a compelling story to write. I’ve done NaNo enough to know that, and the fact Clarion gives you six weeks instead of 30 days actually makes it a little more relaxed as far as pace goes. So I’ve set myself a goal that feels much more challenging – I’m going to write a short story a week, for six weeks.

As far as word count goes, this seems laughable compared to pounding out over 100k words in six weeks. But to me it sounds pretty intimidating because I have a hard time keeping it short, coherent, and interesting. I need more practice with short stories, so this will be my chance to do just that.

Oh yeah. And I’ll keep working on the current novel draft during that time too. Not sure if it’ll still be King’s Hand or if I’ll have moved that one to the percolating pot and gotten started on the next thing, but we’ll see.

Of course, the write-a-thon doesn’t actually get moving until June 24, so I can always change my mind and crank my writing goal up a notch. We’ll see. Maybe if you all heckle me enough, I’ll do it.

Either way, please consider supporting me in the write-a-thon!